Stragedy
by taniita
Summary: Lily Evans is sick of contending with James Potter’s affections. Recognizing this, her friend comes up with a strategy that will stop James from fancying Lily forevermore. But then everything goes wrong and the socalled strategy quickly becomes a stragedy


**Stragedy**

**Summary: **Lily Evans is sick of contending with James Potter's affections. Recognizing this, her friend comes up with a strategy that will stop James from fancying Lily forevermore. But then everything goes wrong and the so-called strategy quickly becomes a 'stragedy'…

**Disclaimer:** Characters, situations, and setting all belong to JK Rowling.

**A/N: **Long time, no write! Well, here's my new story. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

The Ten-Step Plan

"Lily, dear, your behavior today was completely unexpected. How very unlike you! I know, Mr. Potter, that wreaking havoc in class is not at all unlike _you_, but please try not to involve my star student in it! Although an extremely talented friend of mine did have a tendency to explode cauldrons… a certain Barney Bimbleton, from the Ministry of Magic, I'm sure you've heard of him – he was just four years ahead of you, you know, and look how far he's gotten already! Although I suppose in his case the exploded cauldrons weren't caused by anger so much as… anyway, I suppose I'm going to have to give you both a detention on Saturday. Meet me here in my office at seven."

James Potter and I let out audible sighs as we scraped back our chairs and prepared to leave.

"But wait," Professor Slughorn said, causing us to sit down again, "Saturday is the day of our little dinner party, now, isn't it, Miss Evans? Have you asked Miss Whitley if she plans on attending, by the way? Well, I suppose I'll have to make your detention on Sunday evening at seven, then. Just make sure you get your essays written up beforehand, they're due on Monday you know…" With a wink toward me, Slughorn dismissed us from his office.

"What a bugger, that Slughorn," James commented once we were out of the dungeons.

"I quite like him," I lied. Frankly, I would have preferred a detention on Saturday to Professor Slughorn's dinner party.

James laughed. "Don't worry, Lily, he can't hear you. You don't have to pretend to like him."

"But I _do_ like him!" I said, reddening. Sometimes I find that a flustered, stammering lie is a better alternative to admitting that James is right.

"Whatever you say," he said, obviously not believing me. After a reflective pause, he added, "Nice clothes today."

I always hate it when he says this. "James, I wear the same robes _every day_."

"Well, good. Because they're nice."

"Thanks." I only ever say that to shut him up, because one time when I decided to agonize him by not thanking him he kept repeating the same thing over and over until I finally let out a grudging 'thank you very much'. One more episode of this could result in my charming his throat shut accidentally-on-purpose.

"So when are you going to take me up on that Hogsmeade offer?" he said rather nonchalantly as though not every thread of his being hoped for an affirmative answer.

"Not quite yet." Another one of those things that I always say to James.

"Need a tutor for Transfiguration?"

"Surprisingly enough, I am coping pretty well on my own right now," I said. "But thanks for offering."

"What about – don't we have some Heads thing to plan?" James doesn't give up easily.

"You mean the Prefect meeting tomorrow? That we spent all of yesterday planning? And the day before, and the evening before, and the evening before that?"

He thought for a moment, pretending to calculate whether I was blowing him off or whether we really had thoroughly planned, and rather completely exhausted the topic of, the upcoming Prefect meeting. "Right."

I think that I should pause here to explain the situation. As you may have already guessed, James Potter fancies me. I don't know how or when or why it occurred, but one day James must have got a notion that I am, indeed, a girl. Over time this notion grew into a bit of a crush, which then coiled and gathered pressure until it quite unexpectedly sprang up on me and I found myself to be the object of James's violent and unrelenting affection.

I don't know James that well but somehow he seems to know me better than I know myself. He always knows how to compliment me in a way that really makes me take it to heart (except for the 'Nice clothes' routine, as seen above, which I think he continues more as a joke than anything), or how to get me really bloody angry. Or how to confuse me to my wit's end. What he just doesn't realize is that I don't want him to fancy me. I want him to stop. I want to be able to speak to him without worrying whether my speech connotatively tells him that I am free to accompany him to the next Hogsmeade trip when really I have to do my Arithmancy homework.

It's not that James is a bad bloke or anything. Actually, I'm sure he's a really great guy. Maybe if he didn't like me I wouldn't be so disinclined to like _him_. Because the moment I start liking him enough to call him a close friend he's going to think I like him in a different way and really it's so much easier to just be polite and superficially friendly rather than get his hopes up.

But in the meantime, his violent, unrelenting affection annoys the crap out of me. My dear friend Marianne is, unfortunately, acutely aware of this because she is the one who constantly hears about the misfortune brought upon me by Mr. Potter. Which brings me to our seventh year girls' dormitory, right after James and I got back up to the common room and parted ways to visit our friends before heading to the Heads dorms (pun very much intended) to get a good night's sleep.

"He complimented my clothes again," I said, sighing. I was lying on Marianne's bed on my back, with my hair fanned out on her pillow and my arms straight up in the air, reaching toward the canopy overhead.

"He does that all the time," she stated. Then, squinting up at me from the carpet, "Aren't you losing circulation in your arms?"

"Yes. But the point is, Marianne, that with all of these silly compliments I can't speak to James properly at all. I can't even look him in the eye! How are we supposed to be good Heads if we can barely communicate?"

"What are you on about? You and James talk all of the time. You've spent more time with him so far this year than you have with me!"

"I know, I know, but it's just so… awkward. And it's not really talking _to_ each other so much as talking _at_ each other. Honestly."

"Well, if it bothers you so much, then talk to him about it."

I sat up and rolled my eyes at her. "Did you not just hear me say that our communication is—"

"Oh, yes, right." Marianne is the type of person who only needs to listen to the first half of a sentence to understand what you're trying to say. That or she makes a hobby out of cutting people off. "You'll have to make him listen somehow I suppose."

"What, by tying him down to a chair or something?" I said sarcastically.

"That could work," Marianne said with an absent-minded nod.

"Yes, obviously, why don't I just go do that now? Tie James to a chair and lecture him. 'Well, James, I think it would be nice if you didn't like me quite so much and if you didn't look at me in a way as if you're trying to see right into my soul because I've got to admit it makes me rather uncomfortab—'"

"No, what I meant was…" There she was, cutting me off again. "I was thinking. You could get him to stop fancying you." She could tell that I was going to make a retort so she continued before I could speak. "Like if you acted strangely so that he wouldn't be so attracted to you anymore."

My eyes narrowed. "What do you mean acting strange?"

"Dunno, gross him out or something," Marianne offered. Then she snickered, "You could tell him that you fart a lot."

"_Marianne!_ _You_ may think and act like a five-year-old but I certainly won't."

"But think about it! It would work, wouldn't it? I mean if I were to discover that the object of my fancy was a farting machine I rather think that I wouldn't find him quite so attractive as before."

I snorted. "I suppose it makes some sick sort of sense."

"Exactly," Marianne said.

"But," I said, more as a passing remark than anything, "just doing that wouldn't be enough. Sure, it would weaken the attraction but that's different from killing it off completely."

Marianne's eyes brightened. "Of course! You'll need more than just one step in your strategy."

"What strategy?"

She began to Summon parchment and writing supplies from various corners of the room. "Like an action plan that you can make to get James to stop fancying you."

"Oh my goodness. You know I was kidding when I said that thing about killing off—"

"Lily, I have listened to you talk and talk about how _terrible_ it is that James fancies you and how he annoys you _ever_ so much, so be quiet. You obviously need to take action of some sort."

I sat down beside her on the carpet to see what she was writing. Across the top of the parchment she had written, in large block letters, _The Ten-Step Plan_.

"_Ten_ steps?!"

"I figured I would pick a nice round number," she said as she wrote out the first step (_Step One: Gross Him Out_).

"Are the other nine steps going to be just as absurd as the first?"

Marianne paused. "I guess so. Probably the later ones will be slightly more risky but I really doubt you'll get to those. My bet's on James being sick of you after the third step."

"What, have you already got these all planned out or something?" I asked.

"Well no, but I _was_ thinking that for number two you could…"

And so it began. We planned out every step, with each getting more and more unusual and me getting more and more bewildered as the list grew. It was quite late by the time we had fleshed out all ten steps and we each yawned before looking over the list one final time.

"I'm not sure about Step Ten," I said. "It's not right."

Marianne waved a hand at me. "Don't worry about it. You'll never get that far. Consider the second half of the list to be your backup plan."

By this time I was too tired to protest. "Okay then. When will I start on all this?"

"Well, seeing as how Step Two—"

"Right."

"Okay."

Marianne continued, "So I was thinking tomorrow."

"What? That soon!"

"Well you have your Prefect meeting tomorrow so what better time to start it off?" she reasoned.

I contemplated. I sighed. Then I thought of James. My mind's eye conjured an image of him, down on one knee, offering me a pair of handcuffs instead of an engagement ring.

"Alright," I consented.

"Perfect!" Marianne said. "Now get some sleep, we can't have you messing up tomorrow, now, can we?"

I went down to the common room and was dismayed to find James waiting for me so that we could go to the Heads dorms together.

"Chattier than usual tonight?" he said in response to my late arrival.

I couldn't answer him. I felt as though I had been plotting against him for the past two hours and here I was, face to face with my victim. All I could think about on the way to the dorms was how I was supposed to set off a plan tomorrow that could end up hurting him, or humiliating me beyond all belief.

I looked over at him while we walked and caught him staring. He looked away quickly, wringing his hands together. I wanted to be rid of all that. The sneaky glances, his hopeful eyes.

If this plan works, I told myself, I really will be _so_ much better off.

**A/N:** Hope you liked. Leave a review?


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